Monday, June 6, 2016

(CNN)ISIS
is targeting civilians attempting to leave the militant-held city of
Falluja, as Iraqi forces and militia attempt to wrest back control of
the city, a European non-profit operating in Iraq says.

As
many as 50,000 residents remain trapped in the center of Falluja as
Iraqi security forces close in, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) told
CNN Monday. Many of those who try to escape the clutches of ISIS are
being targeted and shot by militants, it said.

"Our
biggest fears are now tragically confirmed with civilians being
directly targeted while trying to flee to safety," NRC Country Director
in Iraq Nasr Muflahi said.

"This
is the worst that we feared would happen to innocent men, women and
children who have had to leave everything behind in order to save their
lives."

Falluja, which lies 65 km
(40 miles) from the capital Baghdad, has been held by the militant group
since 2014, and is the subject of a concerted push to retake
ISIS-controlled territory across Iraq and Syria.

WASHINGTON
— An exhausted and ill-equipped Iraqi Army faces daunting obstacles on
the battlefield that will most likely delay for months a long-planned
major offensive on the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, American and
allied officials say.

The delay is expected despite American efforts to keep Iraq’s creaky war machine on track. Although President Obama
vowed to end the United States’ role in the war in Iraq, in the last
two years the American military has increasingly provided logistics to
prop up the Iraqi military, which has struggled to move basics like
food, water and ammunition to its troops.

Without the help, Americans commanders said, the offensive against Mosul would most likely fail.

BEIRUT — A two-pronged advance to capture key urban strongholds of the Islamic State group and its self-styled capital of Raqqa has underlined a quiet convergence of strategy between the U.S. and Russia to defeat the extremists, with Syria's Kurds emerging as the common link.

The dual advance toward Raqqa by the Syrian army from the southwest and the predominantly Kurdish Syria Democratic Forces from the north and west puts further pressure on the militants as they fend off simultaneous attacks on bastions such as Fallujah, and potentially Mosul, in neighboring Iraq.

The Kurdish involvement is proving vital to the interests of Washington and Moscow.

For the U.S., the predominantly Kurdish SDF has proven the most capable actor in northern Syria in defeating the extremist group, a point it made when its predecessor, the Kurdish YPG, held off the militants in Kobani, in 2015. That battle was seen by many as a turning point in the war on the IS group.

For Russia, the SDF advance has drawn IS fighters away from the front with the Syrian government and allowed the Kremlin's allies in Damascus to advance, showing that Moscow is participating in the battle against the IS group.

While the media has focused on the battles between Iraqi government forces and IS militants in the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, the Syrian army on Saturday reached Raqqa province for the first time in almost two years. The Syrian government has had no presence in Raqqa since August 2014, when IS overran the Tabqa air base and killed scores of government soldiers in a massacre they documented on video. The provincial capital, Raqqa, became the militants' first captive city.

Backed by intense Russian airstrikes, Syrian troops began their advance toward the province Wednesday, the same day that U.S.-backed SDF forces launched an attack on the IS stronghold of Manbij, which is 72 miles to the northwest of Raqqa and lies on a key supply route linking Raqqa with the Turkish border.

A U.S. official on Monday denied any coordination was taking place between the SDF and the Syrian government, or between the U.S. and Russia. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss military strategy publicly.

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Asked about it Monday, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: "We exchange information with the United States on a daily basis, twice a day, that's all I can say."

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